Could it be because of puberty? or fear biting? or are we bad trainers?

I have a puppy who is turning 7 months soon.When he was younger he used to bite us, which i know is normal, and trained him to not bite. This wasn't aggressive or anything, but we knew it had to be stopped, but we couldn't get it completely gone, and in our situation then we couldn't go to puppy training classes.

For a while he actually was not biting at all and was the sweetest dog ever and thought our training was working. However, over the past month he is getting increasingly aggressive, starting with resource guarding despite our families efforts to get him to stop. We decided to go to puppy training classes soon, but when we went there they said the classes will resume on January 16.

For the last two weeks however, he started to bite and chew our hand no matter what distraction he give him. He is starting to try and bite the treats out of our hands when we try to train him. He bites hard and pulls our arms down and just WONT STOP. We just go into his room and after a while he keeps jumping up and just bites and bites and bites. It sucks since his jaws are powerful and we know this is very bad because he can bite someone hard that it causes significant injury. He is very hyperactive no matter how many walks we give him, and I am getting so many bruises on my arms. It is so hard just to be in the same room with him now Could it be because of puberty?

When we go to the dog park he is the sweetest little thing, and when he meets new people he can be jumpy but he never bites them. When he is in the car he is awesome as well. Maybe he is sick? or maybe our family sucks at being puppy parents and absolutely need training classes. I should add that when he bites first he is not baring his teeth or crinkles his nose for the most part, and we provide plenty of chew toys and bones. Its only when we grab his collar and a firm No! that he starts looking aggressive. He used to be fine when the collar grabbing before. Could it be fear biting? Or maybe we have been giving him to much love and affection and he is trying to be dominant. I just want his life to be very good and not stressful

Being a first time puppy owner is hard work but i don't regret getting him

Wow, that was helpful. Does your puppy get any other exercise other than walking? I know that for my pup, walking does not tire him out at all. He needs to do something where he can RUN around, sprint and full out go. I'm not saying that the mouthing is all due to lack of exercise, but you might try to up it a LOT and see if that helps. Others will probably have some other advice. You might try a flirt pole if you don't have a lot of space for ball chasing, etc. It expends a lot of energy in a fairly small area.

Don't beat yourself up over it. You probably didn't do anything terrible, but there's probably some things you missed that progress to where you are. Puppy classes are really not the right venue for you right now. One on one with someone who can show you how and when to correct him for this would be more helpful to you.

One thing I would do right now, quit grabbing him by the collar the way you are. A lot of dogs perceive that as you attacking them and they'll defend themselves to one degree or another. Put a leash on him for everything for the time being.

One thing I would do right now, quit grabbing him by the collar the way you are. A lot of dogs perceive that as you attacking them and they'll defend themselves to one degree or another. Put a leash on him for everything for the time being.

^This. Having him drag a leash allows you to remove him from situations without grabbing at his collar, which has obviously become a problem.

One thing you can also do is desensitize him to having his collar touched. NOT as a correction, just as a low key training exercise, and only if you think you'd be able to do that without him reacting. We did this in the puppy classes I've taken, but we start out when they're very young, with just a touch, before working up to actually holding onto the collar. I touch the collar, mark it ("yes!" in a happy tone of voice), and give a treat. What you want is to create a positive association with a collar touch.

My dogs are perfectly fine with me grabbing onto their collars because I did a lot of foundation work to make that not a bad or scary thing, it was more fun and playful. Halo was used as a demo dog in her puppy classes quite a bit, in this photo, the instructor is demonstrating the collar grab to the class:

i was just bustin' your chops, muse! welcome to the forum. i suck at reading and if reading a book need a ruler to keep my place. or i need to follow my finger.

i have no good advice but 7 isn't really pup anymore but approaching teen years. this really should've been taken care of earlier. i wouldn't even bother with puppy classes. i would just go to basic obedience classes. your dog just lacks discipline which basic obedience will provide. also don't be afraid to yell at the dog. you should be able to stop your dog dead in their tracks and stop doing whatever they are doing with a super loud NO. at the top of your lungs and sound serious.

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